Undergraduate Product Design Innovation students from the Institue of Technology, Carlow were givern a brief to create a bridge between institution and community and use Augmented Reality.

They focused on community by talking with people on the street, online, in the library, with arts organisations, local authorities, and the original Éigse committee. The research found that Carlow has a long history of community involvement in the arts, including the creation of VISUAL itself.

Inspired by their findings they issued an open call to the community to submit art works and recieved 45 submissions from Carlow people in all walks of life. 21 invited international artists also submitted work. One of the leading companies worldwide in the use of Augmented Reality technoloy, Blippar UK, gave the students online tutorials and unlimited access to their software platforms, in order to build the augmented reality experiences.

The students were facilitated by lecturers Rosalind Murray and Colin Deevy. Explaining the final structure of the work, the students commented:

“Art ripples through the people to enrich our shared communal expierence, bringing benefits which radiate beyond geographic boundaries. In this exhibition each artwork plays an equally valuable part in the flow of the wave-like design. Art belonging to the Carlow community emerges from the walls of VISUAL. The use of augmented reality gives us something more. This brings life to our intent.”

This annual exhibition and art prize invites artists working in Ireland to submit new or recent works. The exhibition also features work by invited artists Eilis O'Connell, Kathy Prendergast, Willie Doherty, Siobhán Hapaska and Micky Donnelly. This year's selector is Lewis Biggs curator of the Folkstone Triennial, former srtistic director of the Liverpool Biennial, and director of Tate Liverpool.

The AIB Éigse Award of €5000 for VISUAL Arts was presented to artist Blaise Smith for the ‘most outstanding work in any medium’ at the opening of the Festival on Fri 29th May.

Bedwyr Williams Echt

May 29 - Sep 13, 2015

This emmersive installation envelops visitors in a scene from a dystopian future, a tale of societal greed.

Bedwyr Williams is interested in the worst, worst case scenarios and the people that get caught up in them; average sized people in over-sized situations.

Echt presents a full size diorama of such an encounter, trees are upended, a bus has been abandoned and peoples possesions lie scattered. This emmersive installation envelops visitors in a scene from a dystopian future, a tale of societal greed, where kings are horders and status based on conspicuous consumption.

This exhibition has been kindly supported by M & A Coaches Ballyragget, Kilkenny, www.mandacoaches.com .

Associated Event:

Perfomance by artist Bedwyr Williams and jazz session with The Aristotle Trio.

Main Gallery

3.30pm Sat June 6th

Places limited. Book with Box Office at VISUAL on 059 9172400

David Ebner and Tobias Zimmer Post Electric - Database

May 29 - Sep 13, 2015

Database is a public installation on the subject of surveillance and covers the invisible and the unnoticed collection of data.

Database was created by David Ebner and Tobias Zimmer, University of Applied Sciences, Trier, Germeny.

Database is a public installation on the subject of surveillance. It covers the invisible and the unnoticed collection of data in both public as well as digital spaces, and the use of this information. The installation consists of a continuos printer, a paper shredder and two cameras, which detect the faces of people passing by. The faces are printed together with a data entry that indicates date, time and the number of the capture. They are then processed by the shredder, while the digital image files are deleted immediately upon printing. This way the Database is gradually filling itself with huge amounts of paper and data, drawing attention to the constant invisible and unnoticed collection, use and storage of personal data in the world around us.

Associated Events

Little Robots Summer Camp

20th - 22nd July, 10am - 3.30pm, €75. Ages 6 - 11

Over three days, campers will learn basic code and electronics to design and build robots and create short cartoons about the robot characters that they have developed, with Coderdojo Carlow.

VISUAL Talks

Fri 11th September, 10am - 4pm, €40.

New Realities; introductions to AR, with case studies from artists and institutions, (including a hands-on session building your own easy peasy virtual reality viewer!)

Yuri Suzuki Post Electric - BeatVox

May 29 - Sep 13, 2015

An installation which enables anyone to control a set of drums with their own voice, harnessing the principles of augmented reality.

Renowned for his projects questioning the materiality of sound, Royal College of Art alumni Yuri Suzuki has his own way of looking at augmented reality. He has created an installation which enables anyone to control a set of drums with their own voice, harnessing the principles of augmented reality to interpret them in the realm of sound.

Users express a sound into a microphone. A few meters ahead, the sound impulsions trigger a beat on an actual drum kit, with robotic drumsticks attached to each drum. The installation starts with a physical action turning into an augmentation – which is also physical. Tested in public at the DMY Berlin Festival, this is primarily a source of reflection on the very nature of Augmented Reality, usually restricted to the field of vision.

Beatvox was commissioned by EPFL+ECAL Lab Switzerland, for the ground-breaking ‘Give Me More’ exhibition, exploring the link between the physical and digital worlds via augmented reality-based immersive installations. The exhibition was awarded the DMY International Design Festival Berlin Prize 2010, and previous incarnations have travelled to London, Milan, Paris, San Francisco and New York.